The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) will allow men who identify as women to join the organization following a recent amendment to their bylaws. According to DAR’s website, “Any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution is eligible to join.” DAR now joins the growing list of woman-only organizations to capitulate to dangerous cultural changes that actively dilute the meaning of womanhood.
In a release clarifying the decision, DAR President General Pamela Rouse Wright said, “Some have asked if this means a transgender woman can join DAR or if this means that DAR chapters have previously welcomed transgender women? The answer to both questions is, yes.”
“The bylaw amendment does not change that fact, and we will continue to welcome them into our Society in the future,” she continued.
Wright emphasized during DAR’s 2023 Continental Congress that anyone seeking membership who has a birth certificate saying he or she is female may be eligible for chapter membership, The Daily Signal reported.
With increasing support from medical professionals, it has never been easier for individuals to change their legal sex on official documents which means it has never been easier for men to become legally recognized as women.
The more explicit announcement to include male-to-female transgender individuals came following revisions to the organization’s bylaws, removing the requirement that members be “personally acceptable to the chapter” while stipulating that “NSDAR and its chapters may not discriminate against an eligible applicant based on race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.”
The decision from DAR was made to “[clarify] that neither the National Society nor our chapters may deny membership to eligible applicants in a manner that could be considered unlawful discrimination.” But there is a difference between an organization that is inherently exclusionary and one that is discriminatory. Requiring that eligible members be female is a biological category that was historically a feature of membership to DAR that allowed it to serve a unique purpose for women. Sons of the American Revolution, for instance, is a male-only analog to DAR; being exclusive to men allows it to serve a unique purpose for men.
But now, the rules of the game have changed as the contemporary meaning of womanhood has become untethered from what it actually means to be a woman. Indeed, DAR’s more-than-a-century-long history as a woman-only organization has been cast aside in order to accommodate modern, identitarian sensibilities. Some members, disgusted with the change, resigned from the organization, and others expressed concern that they will now be forced to welcome men who identify as women into their organization.
Denying chapters the ability to make determinations of fitness based on what is “personally acceptable to the chapter” denies women the ability to make appropriate judgment calls that would bar men from entering their groups and forcibly strips women of the ability to maintain the integrity of spaces solely occupied by women.
It is now normal to house men in women’s prison facilities and sorority houses and to welcome them in female sports leagues solely because they claim to be women. The slippery slope of inclusivity has cast vulnerability on women and the spaces that belong to them. Allowing men to join DAR, so long as they claim they are women, relies on the same precedent that gave men like Fallon Fox license to beat women for sport and men like Demi Minor to impregnate female inmates. Differences between men and women exist, and ignoring them is a disservice to everyone.
